Absinthe
by prairiecrow
Summary: Sometimes what we want most is the last thing we should desire.
1. Chapter 1

He knew he was in desperate danger the first time he looked into those wide eyes, keenly questioning and profoundly lost: they were so damned _green_, something he'd always had a distinct weakness for. In fact the first thought that crossed his mind upon seeing them was: _Green as absinthe, and just as illegal._ Oh, not in a purely technical sense — California's sodomy laws had been repealed nearly ten years ago — but in every other way that mattered those eyes and the unlined face that framed them were pure trouble, and it had just landed squarely in his lap, figuratively speaking.

* * *

For several days afterwards he was kept too busy with a whirl of investigative activity and paperwork to think about it much: Bonnie was trying to stabilize KITT psychologically, Michael was roaring around like an enraged tiger, and nobody knew who the hell's body the AI had ended up in — only that he was there, and that the question of how to get him out of it again loomed just as large and far more urgently. But every so often a thought managed to infiltrate the fortress of Devon's mind anyway, especially late at night when he ungirded his mental loins for sleep: while he lay there defenceless it came back to him again, that searching gaze brighter than jade, it slipped between the sheets and lay down next to him in fact, and he clutched at his pillow and closed his eyes more tightly and directed all his willpower to outrunning it.

Pointless, of course. Even in human form KITT retained a speed and a power that could easily take your breath away, if you weren't careful.

And Devon had to be very careful indeed, for any number of reasons. Over the course of six hectic days he sorted the moral tangle out into three main strands: power differential, relative ages, and the question of homosexual attraction itself. The last factor was an unhappy surprise, but not an entirely unexpected one — the last time he'd felt this way had been about a fellow agent in the SIS, also a man considerably younger than himself, a bright and highly professional fellow with a dry wit and… too many similarities to the present situation to be anything less than deeply uncomfortable. But Devon had put that firmly behind him: he knew the law and he knew his duty, and no matter how powerful the attraction he hadn't been willing to throw his career away over an episode of mere animal lust. After a year the handsome young agent in question had transferred out and with considerable relief he'd set himself back on a lifelong path of fancying the proper sex.

* * *

Brian Coleson, too, had possessed gorgeous green eyes.

* * *

The first factor was the clearest cut: he was the Executive Director of FLAG, and KITT was Foundation property… or at least he had been, because the argument could be made that he was now effectively human and that the concept of owning someone's soul was ethically repugnant in the extreme. The more he worried the problem the more Devon came to the conclusion that while this point was superficially the most obvious, it actually led to a labyrinth of questions with a Minotaur lurking at its heart… or someone else who stood outside all existing categories, neither fish nor fowl, neither machine nor man. He didn't want to get any closer than he absolutely had to, but late at night he found himself daring the shadowy corridors anyway without even a ball of twine in his hands to guide him back out again. It certainly didn't help that KITT himself turned to him for advice in these present difficulties, and that he currently lacked the cool detachment necessary to deny the —

* * *

KITT seldom smiled, but when he did it lit up his entire face. And he always brightened when he saw Devon come into the same room. Every single time.

* * *

— just what _was_ KITT, anyway? The term _Dear boy_ came to Devon's lips easily, as easily as the smiles that seemed to naturally blossom in KITT's presence, but in the case of artificial intelligence physical age meant nothing: KITT had been cognitively mature from the instant of his activation inside his robotic body. Devon knew this to be true because he'd been there, and because he had been the second person whom KITT had ever spoken to. Even then, mere seconds into full life, the AI had struck him as a vital presence: keenly intelligent, remarkably earnest, curious about everyone and everything around him. He'd felt a surge of fatherly protectiveness that was both immediate and instinctive, and for the past three years that paradigm of older mentor and younger protege had continued to hold true. Certainly he'd fought for KITT's right to exist on more than one occasion, facing down the Board of Directors with steely determination when they'd threatened to pull funding and to have KITT decommissioned. That was something that Devon Miles would never allow, because the Knight Industries Two Thousand project had been Wilton Knight's dying dream, and…

* * *

"Devon!" Such an eager inflection, and oh sweet Lord, that smile…

* * *

… and because he liked KITT on a purely personal level. He liked him a great deal indeed. They'd spent many long evenings in remote communication while Michael was asleep and KITT was piloting the car, playing chess and trading stories and discussing the finer points of culture, philosophy, and life in general. It never ceased to amaze him that KITT could be such a paradoxical combination of certifiable genius, erudite professor, effective field agent and innocent child: the AI's sense of wonder at the world around him never faded, everything was an adventure, and no matter how many terrible things happened to him — and there'd been a few that had come close to extinguishing him forever — he never lost the relentless curiosity that operated side by side with his pre-programmed caution.

The expertise and the innocence effectively cancelled each other out in Devon's mind. To him, KITT was fundamentally ageless and timeless. Certainly not mortal. Definitely not human, for all that he possessed a bright and beautiful soul and more than his share of inherent humanity.

* * *

KITT rose from the seat where he'd been scanning the diary of Peter DeVries' girlfriend and crossed the small room with graceful precision in every movement, to lay his hand on the arm of Devon's suit jacket, gazing up at him with clear pleasure. "I was hoping you'd stop by."

Devon smiled in return, telling his heart to stop skipping so ridiculously inside his chest. "Of course I did, dear boy — I promised I would, didn't I, just as soon as I'd wrapped up the Caulder affair?" He laid a gentle hand on top of KITT's slender fingers. "It's nearly lunchtime, you know. Would you care to join me?"

KITT inclined DeVrie's pointed chin in a little bow, his eyes full of unabashed anticipation. "I'd be delighted, of course." The persistence of memory had re-crafted the human's voice to an amazing extent, raising its pitch and imposing the accent that KITT had originally been programmed with. The effect was both pleasing and uncanny. "Perhaps you can help me to understand a passage I came across in the diary this morning…?"

They set out for Devon's office, hand lingering on arm and heads together, and for the next two hours nothing else seemed to exist.

* * *

KITT was now unquestionably male. He was twenty-eight years old, stood five feet eleven inches tall, and weighed one hundred and seventy-six pounds. He had sharp features and short spikes of tousled chestnut hair and a green gaze that shone with preternaturally brilliant intellect, and his most frail gesture penetrated Devon's inner world with effortless and terrifying power.

The three thorny strands fell at his feet, their Gordian knot cut with a single stroke. Deep in the mirrors of the maze, Devon could only dream of the world he had left behind, where categories were clearly defined and if things were not always quite what they seemed, at least he had a better idea of where they stood.


	2. Chapter 2

He'd first experienced absinthe's kiss in German-occupied France during World War II, while working undercover as a knife thrower in a circus. The bottle of emerald spirits had been produced with a flourish by the lion tamer, provoking squeals of delight and a rush to pass around the small elegant glasses and ornate sugar spoons which were such an essential part of the ritual. Devon had watched in fascination as cold water was poured over the cubes, turning the clear liquid cloudy and diluting it considerably; he'd heard rumours, of course, of absinthe's power to induce hallucinations and even madness, but his instructors in the art of espionage had assured him that such myths had no basis in reality. Therefore when he was offered a glass of his own he'd consented to drink, and had been pleasantly surprised by the smooth fire of it coursing down his throat, redolent of black licorice and a lingering floral sweetness.

The aftereffects had been swift and equally startling: he knew how to handle alcohol and the manifestations of ordinary intoxication, but the Green Fairy induced an entirely different state of mind — not a muddling but a sharpening, clarity rather than confusion. Every sense became enhanced to a degree that would have been painful if he hadn't felt so calmly serene — they even mingled to the point where he was breathing the musical cadences of Emilia's voice, hearing the alluring ruby of her lips and feeling the scent of her hair like velvet against his skin. Making love to her had been an experience unlike anything he'd previously dared to imagine, a sweetness intense almost beyond endurance, and in the aftermath he'd lain in the pool of their shared warmth thinking: _My God, this is what love is, and I've never known until this instant!_

Of course it didn't last. The Fairy's gifts vanished with the setting of the moon, leaving him smitten — but equally convinced that like all finer things, such transcendence was to be best enjoyed in moderation. For the next twenty-six years he had enjoyed one glass of absinthe a year, usually on the evening of his birthday, until he'd come to America with Wilton Knight and obtaining the drink had become legally impossible.

Still, the memories lingered, and he found that gazing into the clear inhuman intensity of KITT's eyes brought them back in a way that made his heart ache with regrets both old and new. This too was intoxicating in a way that made him feel sharper, clearer, infinitely more alive — this too was an experience that had come to him unbidden — and this too was equally forbidden by duty, and compassion, and the cruel laws of time that had separated them by almost exactly sixty years.

Or was it closer to thirty now? It didn't matter. He was too old to even consider playing that sort of game, especially with someone who needed him to serve as a wise and kindly mentor, not to engage in a foolhardy attempt to resurrect the bold and dashing young lover he'd been nearly four decades ago. That was Michael Knight's role now, if he'd wanted to take it up…

* * *

… which he did not. Devon was sure of it. He'd seen Michael holding KITT close, comforting him after his initial rescue and during numerous rough patches since, giving the AI hugs and dazzling smiles of encouragement every step of the way, and while there was a tremendous depth of love there on both sides he could detect no trace of sexual passion.

He was ashamed to admit, even in the privacy of his own lonely bed in the darkest hours of the night, that he rejoiced in that conspicuous absence of feeling.

Shame and hopelessness notwithstanding, he still couldn't manage to deny it — nor the rekindled fire that smouldered in his flesh, from what should have been sedate and sober ashes.

* * *

A rare overnight chill, and in the morning, a world of pristine white. Devon stood at his office window with a cup of hot tea, watching Bonnie and Michael and KITT play in the thin layer of snow. Michael had just pegged KITT in the back with a snowball, and was discovering to his sorrow that KITT was no mean marksman himself.

The sound of carefree laughter drifting up to his lonely keep made Devon smile indulgently. He had plenty of work to do, but the sight of KITT's joy was too powerful an incentive to resist. After all, the poor child had had so little of that since learning what human emotions really meant, and even if he was not the cause of that happiness Devon could certainly take comfort in its existence.

* * *

Days turned into weeks, and the mystery of exactly what Peter DeVries had done to transpose himself with the most advanced artificial intelligence on the planet remained. The car itself was still missing, not even leaving a signal from its homing beacon behind: the Board was livid, but Devon managed to entirely shield KITT and the rest of the team from their extremely vocal displeasure —

— until the night when Jason Ridgeway, one of the outside directors, drove up to the estate and bluffed his way in by claiming that Devon had summoned him, then managed to find the robotics lab where Bonnie and KITT were trying to figure out how to return the AI to his original body if it was ever recovered. The first Devon heard of the whole affair was an urgent call from KITT's senior tech, who told him (over background noise which suggested that Michael Knight and Ridgeway were about to tear each other's throats out) that the Board member had stormed into the lab demanding to know what the hell was going on, then practically jumped down KITT's throat when the AI tried to give him an explanation. Later he would learn that if Michael hadn't arrived at that precise instant Bonnie would have leaped to the attack herself, but KITT's driver had beaten her to the punch and given her enough breathing space to place the call.

Devon easily beat his own previous best time for the journey from his office to the robotics lab, and burst in to find Ridgeway carrying on a spirited shouting match with both Bonnie and Michael, who were standing side by side between him and KITT. The AI, whose back was to the doorway, stood watching the altercation from about ten feet away with stiffened spine and clenched fists; when Devon came up beside him he could see that DeVries' body was physically trembling, every muscle taut, his sharp-featured face pale with either fear or rage — quite possibly both.

He spoke KITT"s name gently and barely got a twitch in his direction as a response: KITT was utterly focussed on the combatants, his slender frame undoubtedly awash in adrenaline and cortisol. Devon took hold of his shoulders and kindly but firmly put him further back, then stepped in front of the smaller man and squared his own shoulders before striding into the fray, uttering a demanding roar that refocussed Ridgeway's attention instantly and made his bellicose face redden even more. Within thirty seconds the flush had faded to deadly white, and thirty seconds after that he was in full retreat, covering his withdrawal with threats that the Board would "hear about this" — a serious prospect, considering that Devon had been deftly avoiding providing them with too much information on the KITT project's current state of affairs.

But he had other, more pressing concerns in the minute or so after Ridgeway's departure: with the immediate threat sent packing, the team had immediately turned their attention to KITT, who was still staring with eyes that showed white all the way around the irises. They got him into a chair and wrapped him (still trembling, still wide-eyed) in a blanket, but it wasn't until Bonnie tried to hand him a cup of hot chocolate that his frozen expression finally crumbled into a shattered wreck of emotions: grief, terror, anguish, all of the above. He covered his face with his hands and started to sob brokenly, each breath hitching painfully in his slim throat.

As Michael went down on one knee beside him and stroked his hair and drew him into his arms, gently hushing him, Bonnie turned back toward Devon with a grim expression and a piece of whispered intelligence: "Ridgeway called him a useless piece of failed technology. He told him we'd all be better off if he hadn't survived the transfer."

Devon's heart sank and began to burn: no attack could have been calculated to strike more deeply at KITT's insecurities. Schooling his own expression to calm sympathy, he went to KITT"s other side and reached down to lay a firm hand on the AI's shaking shoulder. It was all that propriety would permit under the circumstances. But when he got back to his office he picked up his telephone and immediately set the wheels in motion to repay Ridgeway for his contemptible attack on a guiltless target in suitable coin.

* * *

All that night the memory of the haunted expression in KITT's eyes refused to let him sleep. He ended up standing at his bedroom window with a glass of brandy in one hand, staring out at the cold starry sky and wondering repeatedly, uselessly, if there was anything more he dared to do.

* * *

Two months later Ridgeway was off the Board: he'd done their dirty work for them, but he hadn't been prepared for the degree of clout that Devon was capable of wielding when he chose to call in several high-level favours from the upper echelons of Knight Industries.

That, however, was a happy development destined for the future. The present was desperately dark in contrast — and when they finally recovered the car, it was only fated to fall into even deeper shade.


	3. Chapter 3

He sat in bed, reading _Don Quixote_ by the warm golden glow of an expensive bedside lamp — or perhaps not. The page in front of him hadn't been turned in nearly ten minutes, although he was gazing directly at it through his small pair of silver-rimmed reading glasses. He blinked at the lines of tiny text, tried to pick up the thread of the narrative, and failed yet again.

Not once in his life had he become addicted to anything. Oh, certainly he'd been tremendously fond of specific items, and he'd loved various people in the course of sixty-two years, but this deep burn of inexplicable obsession, of preoccupation to the point where he found himself drifting during moments of otherwise steady concentration…

The exquisite clarity in a glass of green liqueur. The keen intelligence in a pair of green eyes. One a distilled poison, the other an essence of something inhuman, both of them beckoning him nearer with a quality of surreal fascination.

Both of them a profoundly bad idea, from any rational perspective. Both of them tempting him to madness.

At least absinthe would not protest — sharply and aggrievedly — if he took the glass in hand and brought it to his lips. The thought of KITT's potential revulsion went a long way towards bringing his wandering mind back to Earth with a sobering_thump_.

He sighed, and slipped off his glasses before closing the leather bound book and setting them both away from him on the bedside table. If six decades of life had taught him anything, it was that nobody had ever died from wanting too much, although they might desperately wish that they could. The world was full of beautiful things he couldn't have. What difference would two more make?

* * *

He came to the robotics lab late one morning after extricating himself from a long distance call with an old military contact, and KITT looked up from his computer screen as he entered, his wan face warming with a wide smile. "Devon! I was beginning to think you'd forgotten!"

"Never," he smiled in return, gently apologetic, thinking how tired KITT looked and how he just wanted to enfold him in a luxurious blanket and tuck him into bed and hold him quiet until he fell asleep. The dear boy was working far too hard! Didn't Bonnie and Michael see that? Clearly he needed somebody to take him in hand and —

He wondered precisely when he'd gone mad, but the question had been posed so often that it was now barely more than a background murmur beneath the pleasure he felt as KITT rose to meet him, that radiant smile still shining in his eyes.

* * *

Another sleepless night.

He rested his forehead against a window cold with the breath of the night, and wished that he could summon the Green Fairy across a restless ocean and a vast continent to bring him a few hours of clarity and peace.

He'd been wishing for too many impossible things of late, but it was evidently pointless to tell himself to stop.

* * *

KITT shook his head, reaching for another tartlet. "But it makes absolutely no sense! Why would Quixote believe for a single solitary second that a simple farm girl was a noble lady, when every detail of the text offers ample evidence to the contrary?"

"I think that's rather the point," Devon noted, helping himself to another lump of sugar for his tea. "Quixote is a man who has come to the conclusion that fantasy, if it's good enough, is a damned sight better than reality could ever be, and he sets out to make reality conform to his ideals of chivalry and love. Some people would call that noble —"

"Not to mention desperately misguided!" He levelled a stern gaze at his lunch companion, lifting a forefinger warningly. "As the text goes on to demonstrate in no uncertain terms. Things seldom turn out well for the knight errant in question, do they? He doesn't even achieve union with his beloved 'Dulcinea', for all his fine words and lofty ambitions."

"Perhaps that is precisely _not_ the point, KITT." He took a sip of his tea, savouring the infusion, then set the cup aside on its saucer to continue his thrust: "It could be argued that Cervantes is suggesting that love, chivalry, and idealism are all worthwhile in and of themselves, regardless of their impact upon or relevance to the so-called 'real' world. Quixote, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, has made up a play world that beats the real world all hollow. Reality may leave him bloodied, but it certainly never leaves him bowed."

"All of which could have been avoided if he'd read fewer books," KITT riposted dryly. He finished off his tartlet in two neat bites and chased it with a dainty sip of coffee. "I suppose _Don Quixot_e is worthwhile as an exercise in intertextuality, but I'm afraid I'll never be able to appreciate it as a work with any emotional relevance whatsoever."

"Perhaps you're simply not mad enough yet," Devon suggested with a teasing twinkle.

"In which case, may I be spared the blessings of enlightenment," KITT concluded with a sardonic tilt of one eyebrow and the tiniest wrinkle of his nose. "Would you care for the last lemon slice?"

He did, and found it both bitter and sweet.

* * *

Time was one constant on which he could rely, although even that could be expanded or contracted by the lunar pull of subconscious emotion.

Three years, two months, and sixteen days. He'd been present for KITT's entire life; he'd watched an already remarkable mind steadily expand in ever-increasing layers of complexity, exceeding all predictions concerning its potential. He'd seen intelligence become understanding and raw data transformed into wisdom. His hands had been among those guiding it most consistently on its ever-upward course.

For forty of those days that uncanny mind had been manifest in a pale slender body with dark hair and piercing eyes, as graceful as a deer, and he'd found himself hopelessly in love, like a man lost in a dark wood where no clear track existed to guide him in the right direction — only a single star, if he dared to trust the terrain that lay beneath its eldrich light.

During that same forty day period, so swift yet so agonizingly slow, he'd discovered that telling yourself you're going mad does nothing whatsoever to arrest the process.

He gazed at a stranger's vulpine face and could not help moving just a little closer to the contour of its cheekbones and the sly curve of its lips. He knew the spirit that dwelled within its mask. He had known it all its life. He simply hadn't seen its full aspect until this eternal moment.

Perhaps sanity was overrated, after all.

* * *

Forty-one days after KITT had been found in DeVries' body, a search team spearheaded by Michael Knight finally succeeded in tracking down the Knight Industries Two Thousand robotic automobile in a dense patch of scrub under a bridge in San Diego. It was muddy and rain-spattered but intact, and unresponsive when approached and engaged, although its door locks mindlessly opened to Michael's touch.

Devon accompanied Bonnie and KITT south in the Foundation's mobile unit to retrieve it. When KITT saw his original body for the first time in almost six weeks, with Michael behind the wheel driving it, his breath caught audibly in his throat and his head came up warily, a tremor of reaction coursing through his neck and down his spine. His distress was so palpable that Devon, standing on his left, found himself taking a half-step and reaching out instinctively to put his arm around KITT's stiffened shoulders, gently drawing him against his side.

For a heartbeat KITT hesitated; then he yielded with a sigh, leaning in and raising his left arm hesitantly to Devon's waist, turning his cheek against the shoulder of Devon's suit jacket while his sidelong gaze remained fixed on the car. On his right side, Bonnie stepped in close as well and silently reached down to take his hand, twining her fingers tightly with his own.

They stood together in silence while Michael piloted the car up into the mobile unit. When he'd parked the vehicle in its usual spot and gotten out, KITT raised his head from Devon's shoulder and cast a wide-eyed glance up at him, full of questioning pain, before looking to his driver almost desperately.

Michael understood, and shook his head. "It's not you, buddy. Not anymore."

KITT's gaze returned to the car, to its dead dark scanner port. He licked his lips. "It looks… smaller than I remembered it, somehow."

For reasons he couldn't name, those words sent a chill down Devon's spine as well.

* * *

That night he dreamed about drinking a potion distilled from the essence of emeralds and riding to the wars infused with superhuman strength and celerity, slaying a thousand nameless and faceless soldiers on his path to glory. He woke with the name "Dulcinea!" on his lips and sank back into sleep's embrace again almost immediately, losing himself in dreams where the enemy was on the other end of his sword and outside his skin.

For a brief shining span of hours, everything was simple again.

But when he awoke, he knew that everything that mattered belonged to the unspoken darkness within his own heart.


	4. Chapter 4

Amelia Claremont. He remembered her so clearly, even now: her laughter, her brilliance, all the magnetic forces that had drawn him to her from the moment they'd met. His one great love, by all conventional definitions. But Destiny hadn't been working in their favour. In the end they'd been forced to part and to pursue separate courses through the midnight forest, only occasionally sharing the comfort of a smile flashed across the intervening wilderness.

And thus he was alone now, save for an inhuman grace that had been drawn from some distant land to walk at his side. He could steal glances at its smooth limbs and shining eyes, but he knew that if he dared reach out to touch its opal horn it would shy away and vanish, leaving only an echo of moonlight behind.

* * *

"KITT's Lambda functions are five full points out of phase with the hardware."

Thirteen words, and a fate was effectively sealed. Bonnie promised that she would do her best to pull off a miracle yet again. Everybody nodded and made appropriate noises of faith and encouragement.

KITT only looked frightened for a moment before rolling up his sleeves and diving right back into the work at Bonnie's side. Michael and Devon, who had no role to play, contented themselves with a shared glance. Devon had never seen KITT's former driver appear more grim, and he knew he wasn't looking much better himself.

"It'll be fine," Michael asserted as they took their leave from the lab. Devon only nodded, his mind already a million miles away.

* * *

The mind of Peter DeVries hadn't survived its transplant into the car's CPU, at least not for long. Only fragments remained, enough for Bonnie to determine that they weren't written in any coherent programming language and thus were likely to be traces of a human presence.

In spite of all the logistical problems that were now on the table, Devon was actually relieved to hear that KITT's stats were too far off the beam to risk making the re-implantation attempt. He'd been steeling himself against the ordeal of watching it from afar for what felt like an eternity, trying not to think about what would happen if it failed.

Under normal circumstances he wished Bonnie every success in her endeavours. This time…

Well. This was as far from normal circumstances as he could imagine.

* * *

Michael took a sip of vending machine coffee, briefly grimacing at the taste, before ducking his head to peer through the little window in the door leading into the robotics bay. "Devon, I've never seen him this scared before. Not even after the acid pit."

Devon's gaze was already fixed on the back of KITT's neck where he bent over piece of equipment, helping Bonnie with endless calibrations. "Can you honestly blame him? He's determined to go ahead with the procedure if at all possible, and even if it _is_possible it may well end up killing him."

Michael winced again. "Yeah. I know. I've been trying real hard not to think about that."

"And yet," Devon continued, "he's keeping calm and carrying on with admirable tenacity." He turned his attention to Michael with a small smile that concealed his own sinking heart. "Working with you again means everything in the world to him: he'd hazard any danger on that account."

Still peering into the bay, Michael shook his head. "It's not worth it. It's not worth his life. But I can't talk him out of it, no matter how hard I try. It's like he's tuning me out, only hearing what he wants to hear."

He reached out and laid a consoling hand on the driver's leather jacketed left arm. "He loves you, Michael. That's all that matters to him in the end."

Michael's lips tightened into a grim line. He nodded, but did not reply.

* * *

Two nights later Devon woke abruptly shortly after one a.m., prompted by a clear intuition that something wasn't where it should be in his domain. He freshened himself up and got dressed and set off into the halls of the mansion, trusting his intuition to guide him — which it did, to a darkened gallery overlooking the gardens where an isolated figure stood at one tall window, silently watching snow descend from the ebony sky.

"KITT?" His traitorous heart leaped into his throat but he found his feet moving closer anyway, taking him across the marble floor nearly silently. "What are you doing up so late?"

"Thinking, of course." His usually expressive voice was muted, save for what might have been irritation. "It's all I seem to be good for these days."

He stopped about a foot away from KITT's left shoulder, studying his profile and finding more weariness there than he'd ever seen before — and something much more troubling, a quality of tautly held pain. "You look exhausted. You should be in —"

"I suppose I should." He continued to observe the rare snowfall, each flake unique. "But I simply can't face it tonight. Strange, how a bed can be so much more lonely than a deserted parking garage. I used to hate spending nights trapped with so many other parked vehicles — it was like whiling away the hours in the presence of a herd of brainless corpses. But now…" A sharp inhalation, a slow sigh. "Oh, what I wouldn't give to be there again!"

He pitched his voice to a soothing timbre: "You will be, very soon."

It was a not-quite-human laugh, subtly wrong yet gorgeously musical for all its bitterness. "Oh, please! Were we listening to the same report? Because I can assure you, the data itself is even less promising."

"My dear boy…" He reached out and laid a steady hand on KITT's left shoulder, feeling the finely boned fragility of it, as compelling in its own way as the rigour of steel. "You mustn't give up hope just yet. Bonnie has assured me that she's very close to a breakthrough, and —"

"And?" He turned a fierce gaze on the man who to all intents and purposes owned his former body, his wide eyes nearly insolent in their directness. "Michael isn't here — surely we can discuss the matter truthfully, without being concerned with sparing his feelings? The fact is that every second I'm trapped in this body makes extraction that much less likely." The fire in his gaze suddenly dimmed to embers, and he looked out at the night again, turning as brittle as glass beneath Devon's hand. "It may no longer even be possible. And if it isn't…"

Devon had always been able to detach himself emotionally from any given situation: it was a skill that had made him a superlative intelligence operative. But this being's pain twined around his heart and held it fast. "There'll always be a place for you here, KITT. I promise you that."

"What if I don't want a refuge?" KITT countered almost tonelessly. "Without my speed, my strength, my futuristic capabilities, I'll be useless — to everyone. What if I wanted to be deactivated?"

It took him a second to process that statement, and when he did a hot chill raced through his entire body. "No. That's quite impossible."

"Why?" Another bark of laughter, much harsher; he looked down at the floor, his shoulders squaring with rising determination. "After all, it's not like I'm a real person. Peter DeVries is effectively dead: I'm just a ghost trapped inside his shell. What if I can't bear the burden of mortality? What if I wanted to be free?" He turned clear green eyes to Devon's face, speaking crisply. "Michael wouldn't help me. Neither would Bonnie. It would be up to you, Devon. You're the only one I can —"

He shook his head sharply and decisively, his heart choking his voice. "No! I won't do it. I won't help you commit suicide!"

"Why ever not?" He seemed genuinely curious, studying Devon's expression with a cooler edge to his jade eyes. "I should think you've have a vested interest in wrapping the project up as neatly as possible. I'd no longer be capable of fulfilling Wilton Knight's mandate. I'd be an extraneous variable, a burden on the —"

Silently, savagely, he cursed Jason Ridgeway's callousness — because suddenly he understood that KITT had been staring out into this snowy night with the words of the director's attack playing over and over in his eidetic memory, reinforcing his own conviction that his entire value lay in his ability to serve. With firm pressure of his hand he turned KITT to face him and then stepped closer, closing both hands around KITT"s upper arms and letting some of the fire he felt flash into his eyes. "You stopped being a sterile element in our equations a long time ago, KITT. In fact, you never really were. You're a cherished friend — no, more than that, we're your family. Never doubt that for a second."

A haunted quality infused his narrow features from within. "Devon, please… I have nowhere else to turn. Bonnie and Michael… they're focussed on me now, but they both have duties to return to." His voice ached with sudden grief. "And another car, eventually."

"Michael would never take another partner," Devon stated with complete conviction. "He loves you far too much."

After a moment KITT nodded, accepting the truth with simple grace. "Perhaps. But neither can he spend the rest of his life looking after me — and your world is far too strange and far too alien for me to navigate it on my own. I may walk among you, but I'll never truly belong." His shoulders stiffened, the defiance returning — and the full measure of his pride. "I understand how love can turn to hate when too much is asked of it — literature and history are both full of examples — and I won't let that happen between me and Michael. That would be a destruction more cruel than any other. No, it's better that I choose the method of my own extinction and avoid the problem entirely. Didn't the ancient Romans hold it as one of the highest virtues, to —?"

"You aren't an ancient Roman," Devon snapped, abruptly reaching the end of his patience. "You're like nothing that's ever walked the earth before, and I refuse to let you extinguish your own light because you fear the darkness!"

KITT studied his face for a long moment, eyes narrowed, his expression turning both amused and fond although the bleakness lingered in his eyes. "How human, to cling so tenaciously to what used to be!" A deprecating gesture at his own slender torso. "Look at me, Devon. I'm nothing special anymore."

Part of his mind was racing ahead, thinking of what would have to be done to get KITT somewhere safe, some place where he could be observed and cared for until this bout of despair had passed. Therefore he was distracted when he said aloud: "On the contrary: you're one of the most perfect creatures I've ever seen, as exquisite as a Greek sculpture infused with an angelic soul. No matter what happens to you, that has never changed, and it never will."

KITT 's eyes widened, the quality of his surprise almost palpable. "You really believe that?"

His full attention caught up with what he'd just said. _Oh, bloody hell!_ But as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb… "Beyond a shadow of a doubt."

After a moment KITT nodded again, a wary incline of his chin. "Thank you. I think."

"You're welcome. And it's perfectly true. You are the most lasting proof of Wilton Knight's genius, and you always will be."

"Is that why you're reluctant to help me?" A flare of anger brightened his eyes. "I'm a travesty of what he intended me to be — surely you, of all people, would realize that?"

Devon forced himself to smile, although there wasn't much humour in it. "He didn't get a chance to know you, KITT, or to understand that you outgrew your function a long time ago. But I have. You're…" The mind in front of him was contemplating suicide. This wasn't the time to be coy. "You're inestimably precious to me — to all of us. If anything happened to you, none of us would ever forgive ourselves."

KITT swallowed. He looked away toward the night. His voice was low, but there was steel beneath it. "I'm aware of that. It's part of what's held me back thus far. But — Devon, I was designed to function in partnership with a human being. I have no protocols for solitary existence. If I can't be with Michael, everything I had is gone." He closed his eyes, looking utterly desolate, and breathed a hollow whisper: "I'll be… alone."

It was too much to be borne. He released KITT"s biceps to move even closer, his heart soaring and breaking simultaneously when KITT sank into his arms and let himself be enfolded. He smelled clean and healthy, so vitally alive, his low voice muffled against Devon's shirt collar: "And… I'm afraid!"

"I know, my darling. I know." He cradled him close, resting his cheek against that pale right temple. "But no matter what happens, you needn't be alone, I promise you that."

The winter night seemed to freeze in its tracks, to hold its breath as KITT's whole body went still, his arms tightening fractionally around Devon's waist. "_What_ did you just call me?"

"My brave, sweet boy." Evidently the lover he'd been nearly forty years ago hadn't been completely laid to rest by the passage of time after all. "My own life is almost at its end, but for as long as I live I'll protect you and cherish you. I'll teach you how to fly free, and I know you'll soar to heights you can't even begin to imagine yet — if only you'll trust me."

"Of course I trust you!" No hesitation whatsoever. "You —" He raised his head to look up into Devon's eyes, his finely drawn eyebrows tightening in a little frown of what looked like puzzlement. "You were there from the beginning. Yours was the second voice I ever heard. And you've always been there whenever Michael and I needed you." The frown deepened. "Devon... I don't understand."

This was wrong. This was his best friend's son — or more accurately a genius's most finely crafted work of art, granted a cunning simulacrum of life by a rites too arcane for Devon to fully understand. But now that simulation had become reality, so he bent his head just enough to touch his lips to those of the man he loved, a kiss fleeting and almost chaste. He felt KITT's tiny gasp and thought: _There. I've ruined everything. In a moment he'll tear himself free in a fine fury, and then — _

But he didn't flee, and Devon opened his eyes a couple of seconds later to find KITT still gazing up at him. At least the frown was gone, replaced with a unique combination of startled bewilderment, unabashed amazement, and intelligent calculation. "Wait. Are you trying to tell me that…?"

He simply nodded. "Yes. I am."

"With _me?_"

He smiled kindly, wanting to kiss him all over again. "I'm afraid so. From the moment I looked into your eyes for the first time."

"Devon." He finally blinked, still looking stunned. "I… I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything, KITT." He shifted his hands back to the AI's slim shoulders and started to take a step away: he'd already gotten more than he'd dreamed possible, far more than propriety and ethics could ever condone. Only an apology remained. "Nor do you have to feel —"

KITT pursued him that half-step, maintaining full body contact with an edge of aggressiveness that was far from unpleasing. "Don't." He lifted his chin, gazing up with half-hooded eyes, and just as suddenly assertiveness became surrender. Devon's hands knew it a second before his conscious mind processed the signal, and were already on KITT's back and almost down to his waist by the time he had the presence of mind to be amazed. "Don't you _dare!_"

It was an alchemical instant — Mercury and Sulphur, moon and sun, youth and age entering the sacred _conjunctio_. He felt it strike them like lightning, a divine gift of transcendent grace.

Man. Machine. Something of both. It didn't matter, not anymore.

Had it ever mattered?

He bowed his head to his lover's mouth.

He surrendered.

* * *

In the warm aftermath, curved around each other amidst tangled sheets, he pressed a kiss to KITT's smooth throat and murmured against it: "Utterly intoxicating, darling boy."

A drowsy mumble in return, unintelligible: it might have been _I know_, or _I love you_, or quite possibly _I'm _**_sleeping_**. Smiling, he drew the gracile body even closer and closed his eyes, the better to drink in the relaxed cadences of its breathing and its heartbeat against his own. For the first time in forty-four days he wasn't lost and he wasn't yearning. For the first time in decades, he felt the peace that only one thing had ever truly granted.

And now, two. And this essence contained no bitter poison: he could quench his thirst from its well forever, no matter how vast the physical differences that separated their spirits.

As he finally let the shadows embrace him, he reflected that addiction was a treasure worth any price — and any danger.

* * *

He touched his glass to KITT's, and they shared a smile beneath the summer sky.

THE END


End file.
